While recovering from a shocking turn of events, Section 20 faces a different threat: a new enemy joining forces with an old one. Locke draws Kamali in closer to the team. Scott looks for an old friend, while Stonebridge gets closer to a new one.

David Hinckley

If something has been missing from your TV screen since "24" went off the air, like an unapologetic, fist-pumping, nonstop action thriller with compelling good guys and loathsome bad guys, Cinemax's new Strike Back needs to be your appointment television for the next 10 weeks.

Linda Stasi

Aaron Riccio

Strike Back isn't brilliant television, but it's plenty entertaining, and by fitting the action of 24 with the grit of The Unit (and the nudity of Cinemax), it fills a .22 caliber hole in American television.

Mike Hale

Dorothy Rabinowitz

This series, about an underground British antiterror team that has joined forces with U.S. Special Forces veteran Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton), does succeed in wresting plenty of high-level suspense out of these low-aiming scripts--no small miracle.

Mark A. Perigard

Rob Owen

Brent McKnight

Despite some obvious faults, Strike Back is a decent enough action yarn with slick production values. At the same time, though, the series is more concerned with gratuitous nudity--this is Cinemax, after all, so each episode includes a lifetime's worth of breasts and butt cheeks-than creating a story with any substance, character, or emotional weight.

Brian Lowry

Strike Back does incorporate a few wrinkles regarding its leads, with hints of a larger plot to guide its 10 episodes. Mostly, though, pretty much everyone is reduced to geopolitical stereotypes--starting with the American cowboy and more cautious (if equally sweaty and buff) Brit.